Professor Tells College Student To Bring Baby To Class

By Derek Ewing, Published on Jun 25, 2017

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For many college students, getting to class is a daily struggle. For one University of Tennessee student, class is not the only thing she needs to keep an eye on, making class attendance an even bigger issue.

Morgan King, a therapeutic recreation student, did not want to miss class but felt that she might have no choice. In addition to her duties as a student, King is also a single mother of her three-month-old daughter, Korbyn. On June 15, Morgan could not find a babysitter and did not have time to bring her to a child care center. She emailed her professor to let her know about her conundrum and received a shocking response.

Her professor, Dr. Sally Hunter, completely understood her problem and offered to help her out. She marked her with an excused absence for the day but went even further. She responded, “In the future, if you are having trouble finding someone to watch Korbyn, please feel free to just BRING HER with you to class. I would be absolutely delighted to hold her while I teach, so that you can still pay attention to the class and take notes.”

Morgan could not contain herself and broke down crying after opening the letter. She tweeted a picture of the note and received a ton of feedback. The tweet received over 25,000 likes and over 4,600 retweets. Beverly Davenport, University of Tennessee’s Chancellor, even retweeted her post. She wrote, “Morgan, thanks for showing us challenges college students face. Prof Hunter, thanks for being part of the solution.”

King was so grateful for the offer. She had lost her mother to breast cancer a year earlier. Balancing work, school, and motherhood has been difficult so she will take any help she can get. She uses Korbyn as motivation to graduate and receive her degree.